Ideas for Educators - Idea Blog

4 Great Questions to Ask During Math Instruction (and maybe other content areas!)

8/12/2018

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My summer reading list was long and filled with wonderful resources. One reading project included catching up on all the wonderful articles in ASCD’s Educational Leadership journal and their online supplements. One of my favorites was an article called “Questioning and Vocabulary Supports that Inspire Language-Rich Mathematics,” by Sue O’Connell. O’Connell shared several great questions, but I particularly liked the following:

What keeps happening? Why?
What patterns do you see?
What is the rule?
Will it always work? Explain.

Recognizing patterns is considered an essential ability for higher-level thinking. To encourage this, you might try printing out Pattern Searches, laminate a few and have them ready to hand out when you want to challenge students.

What's your favorite question to get students thinking at higher levels?

O’Connell, S. 2018. “Questioning and vocabulary supports that inspire language-rich mathematics” in Educational Leadership, July 26, (13) 22.

Do Co-Teachers Need an Interior Decorator?

8/6/2018

With the beginning of a new school year right around the corner, co-teachers across the country are talking to their partners and setting norms for their teamwork. One key discussion item, often overlooked, is the classroom environment. What works for a solo classroom may not work as well for a co-taught class. While you probably don’t need an interior decorator, you will want to talk through the following questions:

Does our room communicate parity to the students? Do both teachers have desks of equal size? If there isn’t space for two desks, do both teachers have equal access to the desk and necessary materials?
Are both teachers’ names listed at the door, on the board and on the syllabus? How are we communicating to our students that this is “our” classroom?
Is the room set up in such a way that two groups can be taught simultaneously with both teachers having access to a whiteboard? Do we need to dedicate a board in the back of the room for small group instruction rather than decorations? Do we need to ask for an additional whiteboard?
Are student desks arranged to allow for both teachers to move easily through the room? Are there multiple ways to quickly pull chairs for small group instruction at stations?
Do we have any dividers that can be used to dampen sound or distractions during small group work?

With a few minutes of intentional discussion, your co-teaching space can help to support student success all year long.

Manage Your Small Group Instruction with These Teaching Tips

7/13/2018

Small group instruction can be a highly effective way to help students learn. But when a teacher is working with a small number of students, the rest have to be able to work independently. Here are three clever ideas from a co-taught classroom at Salina Intermediate School.

1. Students have been taught to respect the stop sign and only approach the teacher if it is an emergency.

2. Students have access to an answer sheet, hidden in a “Confidential Envelope.”

3. The co-teachers post very clear directions about what to do if students finish early, including a reflection task.

It was a pleasure to watch these students and teachers go smoothly through their small groups with the help of these organizational structures.

Power Up Your Co-Teaching

7/2/2018

Looking for ideas to power up your co-teaching? Here's a podcast to listen to while sitting in the sun or taking a walk this summer. Enjoy!
http://bit.ly/2tD3Ns3

Practical Idea for Peer-to-Peer Assistance

6/17/2018

Many teachers attempt small group instruction, only to be interrupted by the "independent" workers with questions. A 5th grade teacher in Dearborn, MI uses an easy idea to promote peers as a source of assistance.

On one of the white boards in the room, there is a two column chart. Any student who gets stuck while working independently can get out of their seat, go up to the board and write their name in the left column and their question or need in the right column. Other students who are working independently can glance at the board to see the questions. If there is a question they feel they can answer, they have permission to go to the student's desk. If the two students are able to solve the problem, the peer helper erases it from the board on the way back to his or her seat.

I was impressed with how smoothly this system worked in the classroom and I love that it elevated students to peer helpers. As an added bonus, the teacher gets to work with her small group without interruptions.

Simple Summer Project with Big Fall Payoff

6/3/2018

Many students need to fidget while learning. Rather than fight the need, effective teachers find ways to channel it. Here's an idea I got from a teacher in Michigan - Marble Mazes. Students fiddle with the Marble Maze, moving the marble around quietly.

How to:

Buy ⅓ of a yard of fleece. Cut it in half lengthwise, then cut each piece into 6 inch squares. It should yield 16 pieces.
Obtain 8 marbles or ball bearings.
Put two pieces of cloth together and sew* three edges closed.
Insert the marble.
Sew the fourth side closed.
Sew a maze pattern into the cloth, as in the photo. If you are creative you can try other maze patterns for some variety.

In less than an hour I was able to make 8 mazes. I consider this an investment with big payoffs ahead!

*If you don't sew, I bet you know a parent or friend who does. A one hour project would be a nice way for them to do some volunteer service.

Keep Their Focus with Tools Like This!

5/21/2018

Many of our students are challenged by focusing on details in text or their own work. I love to recommend using Focus Tools as a way to provide support, and add some visual and tactile interaction to student work. In my workshops and webinars, I often share the following examples.

This week I received an email from Kirsten, a teacher at Holyoke High School. She had taken my suggestion to heart and created her own twist on the Focus Tool for teaching linear equations. I love that she could apply it to her own work in order to help students. Thanks, Kirsten, for all you do!

Common Concerns about Co-Teaching

5/14/2018

My inbox frequently contains questions about co-teaching, sent from teachers or administrators who are trying to become more inclusive. Recently, I received an email that included concerns raised by educators who want the best for the children they teach. With permission, here are the concerns and my responses.

1. IEP goals for students with disabilities are very specific. When these students are placed in the general education class, it is not possible to meet their needs or goals.

If the special education teacher is fully involved in planning and instructing, it is possible to meet student goals in a co-taught classroom. Some of the specially designed instruction (SDI) is built into whole group instruction and some of it is built into small group instruction. Co-teachers should plan for approximately 70% of their class time to be spent in small, teacher-led instructional groups.

It is important for the special education teacher to have the IEP goals readily accessible while planning and teaching, so that they can make the most of unexpected opportunities. They also need to be providing specially designed instruction on a daily basis. At times, I find that the specialist is underutilized in a co-taught classroom, more like a para-educator. Specialists need to self-advocate so that they can use their expertise in both planning and instruction.

2. Problems get worse as students move up through the grades. We see students falling behind, even in the resource room setting. They have a bigger learning gaps that can't be addressed in the general education classroom. Behaviors become a bigger issue, too.

It sure sounds as if self-contained or resource room services are not closing the gap, if the gap is getting bigger as students get older! Most schools do not have test scores that prove that pull-out is effective. Maybe it is time to try something different. The high expectations and curriculum depth that students access in a general education classroom can have a significant impact on their rate of learning. However, it is still crucial for students to receive small group instruction within the context of the co-taught classroom. In my experience, and those of many others, behaviors tend to improve in an effective co-taught class. Students have appropriate role models, there are four eyes instead of two, two bodies for proximity control, and the instruction is usually more engaging and responsive to student needs because of the different talents each teacher brings.

3. Many students are distracted in general education settings, especially students with ADHD. They are less distracted in a resource room setting.

It is true that we have students with attention issues. The role of the special education teacher is to instruct students in ways to self-monitor and manage their attention so that they can participate in society. Once they graduate, they will need to work in environments that include distractions, and they will not have a teacher right by their side. In addition, most students with disabilities do not generalize their learning well - so learning an attention strategy in a resource room is not likely to transfer to a general education setting. Finally, the co-teachers must plan for accommodations. What is the best seating location? Who are the best partners for small group work? Have we taught the class a volume control strategy? Are we using focusing tools such as highlighter tape, work masks, ear buds, etc.? Are we teaching students self-monitoring and self-advocacy skills? Before deciding students "can't" we must be confident that we have provided all the services we can.

What the Best Co-Teachers Do Every Spring

4/27/2018

It's springtime and the best co-teachers are getting ready for a year-end evaluation of their co-teaching efforts. Use one or more of the following ideas to gather information about the strengths and needs of your program.

Ask your students to complete a survey about their experiences with co-teaching. Use this one or design your own.
Videotape students as they respond to one or two brief questions about their co-taught classes. (These video clips can be a powerful tool for promoting co-teaching.)
Examine your attendance rates. With effective co-teaching, you can expect a boost in attendance rates at the secondary level.
Do you have students who will be exiting special education or ELL services? Powerful co-teaching should improve your exit rates.
Gather all of the co-teachers in the building to discuss what worked well and what needs to be changed for next year. Celebrate your successes while striving for even greater success next year!

For more ideas on sustaining and growing your co-teaching program, join me in Chicago in July for the National Train-the-Trainer Institute, Co-Teaching that Works!

Not Your Mother's Boring, Old Scavenger Hunt!

4/13/2018

When I was a kid, my mother used to try to get me out from under her feet by giving me a list of items to find outside. I would return an hour or so later with an odd collection of heart shaped rocks, twigs that looked like letters, and dead bugs. (It would take me quite awhile to gather the courage to pick up the dead bugs, and my mother was banking on that!)

Thanks to GooseChase for developing a much more exciting, technology-based version of a scavenger hunt!

Each GooseChase game has a list of missions that students complete. You can either choose from their large bank of missions or create your own. When creating your own, you get to describe each one and assign a point value. Finally, you can create up to three teams in the free version, giving them whatever name you’d like and setting up a privacy passcode for each team.

Last week, I used GooseChase with a group of about 50 adults who were interested in improving their teaching and presenting skills. They were divided into 3 teams (Red, Blue, Green) and had a list of four missions to complete. For example, one mission was to find research on the connection between movement and learning, snap a photo of it and submit the photo. Another was to take video of a movement that might be incorporated into a training session for adults.

Participants were highly engaged, quickly moving through the missions as they tried to beat their colleagues on other teams. And, best of all, they were generating content for their own learning, rather than being spoon-fed by the “sage on the stage.” I can see this being a highly motivating activity for students. At least one student per team will need access to a wi-fi enabled device with a camera and the GooseChase app pre-loaded.

Thanks to Richard Byrne for sharing this app on his site, Free Technology for Teachers. If you don't follow him, you should!